


Starman

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alien!Fitz, Alternate Universe, F/M, Somewhat crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7977637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz is an alien who crashes to earth and Jemma is the human who sets out to help him get home and who also becomes responsible for introducing him to things like the radio, sugar, and kissing. </p><p>As agentcalliope says, the Space Boyfriend we deserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I don't *only* write AUs but I seem to be unable to escape them. Don't know where this idea came from but it's been chasing me for a couple weeks so here's a slapshod one-shot of it! 
> 
> Thanks to agentcalliope for beta-ing and ordering me to include at least a kiss on the cheek. Otherwise it would've stopped at "favorite being in the universe" ;P

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE--”

Jemma dropped her butter knife to the counter and had to dive to save the jar she’d knocked over as an ear-splitting shriek shattered the calm of her Saturday morning.

“What in the name of the Queen’s clean knickers...” she gasped. 

Wiping her hands hurriedly on the dish towel, she curled the butter knife into her palm -- just in case -- and dashed out into the back garden in time to see a silver object streak just over her house, clip the edge of her chimney, rocket right through her wash where it hung on the line, and smash directly into the hedgerow separating her property from the Patils’.

The vehicle tangled in the laundry lines and stuck halfway into the hedge -- for vehicle it must be, based on the tailpipe and flashing lights and the way it rattled, as if seeking freedom -- was unlike anything Jemma had ever seen, even in those fascinating futuristic expos to which her uncle dragged her. It was bulbous, a bit like a 3-D four leaf clover, and Jemma could see why it had crashed: it didn’t look as if any properties of streamlining had been incorporated into the design. It was also, as she could feel even from this distance, scorching hot, and its metal exterior was quickly singeing her carefully-tended shrubs.

She started to approach, but at that moment the top lifted off, the very top of a head appeared, and the vehicle popped right out of the hedge, bouncing several times across the lawn before it spat out its occupant, quite rudely, onto the gravel of Jemma’s walkway.

“Agh, you mad crock, what’ve you done?!”

“Excuse me?” Jemma exclaimed.

“Not -- not you,” sighed the man, pushing himself to his feet and examining the fine cuts lacerating his hands. “This crock.” He kicked the vehicle and then jumped back with a yelp, rubbing his toe. “Can’t take it anywhere.” 

He straightened, and Jemma caught her snort of derision with a hand over her mouth. He was dressed entirely in a neon green all-in-one, seemingly of some stretchy nylon that hugged his skinny form and covered, well, really nothing at all. As she looked, he slipped the connected head covering off and let it fall down his back.

“Where is here, by the way?” he asked with a frown, glancing at her begonias.

“Sheffield,” she answered dazedly. 

“Hmm, never heard of that one. Is that part of the Galidraan system?”

“The wh--”

Behind him, one head and then another popped above the fence as the Creevey brothers pushed themselves up to gape at the newcomer.

“Why don’t we get you inside to look at those cuts,” Jemma murmured, shooting the prying boys a chiding glance and guiding this man, who clearly needed several varieties of assistance, into her kitchen.

When she flicked the overhead light on, the man started and peered up at it, mouth slightly ajar. “How in the blazes did you do that?” He leaned towards the light switch so that his nose nearly brushed it and glanced between it and the light bulb several times.

Jemma frowned, following his gaze as she took her first response kit out of the cabinet. “Maybe I’d best check you for a concussion.”

He stood perfectly still as she shone a flashlight in his eyes and meekly bowed his head so she could examine it for obvious points of impact or bleeding. When she was finished guiding his gaze about with her finger, she noticed that his eyes kept flitting around the room, alighting with surprise on the coffee machine, the house plant draping off the refrigerator, the calendar on the wall.

As a last data point, she asked him gently, “Do you remember who you are?”

“I’m a Fitz.”

“Aphits?” she repeated cautiously. It could certainly be of an origin from a language she’d not studied, but there were no roots in there that she--

“Yes, a Fitz. We hail from the Planet Hinari.”

Now Jemma was  _ certain  _ she was dealing with someone either quite unstable or quite bizarre, or possibly both. “You’re an alien?” she clarified, unable to stop the slightly patronizing tilt of her head. “Then why, pray tell, do you sound like a Scotsman?”

“A whatsman?”

In truth, if anything, rather than an alien he looked more like a cherub, with his buoyant blond curls and rosy red cheeks, lips a perfect cupid’s bow and eyes bluer than anything she’d seen on Earth. Still, he looked  _ man-like  _ to her, if a bit on the scrawny side.

For now, best to humor him.

“Alright, Fitz -- may I call you Fitz?”

“That is the name of my people,” he said obliquely.

“Brilliant. Fitz, I’m sure you’re feeling a bit exposed in that get-up--”

“No, I’m rather comfortable,” he protested, examining the skin-tight green suit and looking back up at her with a slight pout.

“I think you should change--”

“Mm, no, I don’t think so.”

“Fitz, you’re going to change,” she sighed, and stepping behind him she pushed him by the shoulders to her bedroom, where she laid out a pair of sweatpants and a unisex white T-shirt.

Underthings... Well, she would just let him deal with that.

She closed the door on his grumbling and returned to the kitchen.

“Alien or not, he is  _ just  _ like a Scotsman,” she sighed.

A knock at the back door startled her, for the dozenth time in the last half hour, and she quickly verified that Fitz was still in the bedroom before sliding the glass aside just far enough to let Veronica’s head poke through.

“Jemma, love, anything the matter? The boys were chattering away about some strange man in your garden -- has there been an accident?”

“Just my eccentric engineer friend,” Jemma lied quickly with the wide fake smile she found made her seem innocent and trustworthy. “Always tinkering with something, always blowing things up. Sorry for the noise!”

“Is there anything I can--” 

“I’ll call you, Veronica!”

She shut the door, nearly on Veronica’s nose, and quickly yanked the curtains across. Veronica was sure to spread  _ that  _ around, but better the neighborhood assume she had a mystery suitor than anything resembling the truth.

Whatever the truth was.

“Jemma?”

She jumped --  _ this day is like a damn haunted house _ \-- and turned to find Fitz coming down the hallway, the sweatpants settled too low on his hips and the shirt fitting him quite strangely.

“Is that how you pronounce it, Jem-ma?” he repeated slowly. “It’s written, just here--”

He reached into the front of the t-shirt and pulled out the tag to show her.

“Oh, Fitz,” Jemma chuckled, unable to see his little foibles as anything but adorable. “You’ve got it on backwards. Here, let me--”

Together they got his arms through the sleeves. He stuck his lower lip out slightly as he watched her begin to twist the fabric around his torso.

It rucked up slightly over his abdomen and Jemma shrieked.

“What? What is it?” Fitz demanded, slightly panicked.

“Your belly-button!”

“What about it?!”

“You’ve not  _ got  _ one!”

“Oh, yeah.” Fitz slipped a hand around her immobile arm to trace the dark brown swirls, like a seamless tattoo, emanating from the unbroken skin above his waistband. “Is that not normal?”

“ _ No _ ,” she said firmly, getting the shirt on him properly and forcing his arms through. Her hands shook slightly as she straightened the sleeves over his warm upper-arms. “You’re really  _ not  _ from Earth, are you?”

“What does yours look like, then?”

He had her jumper nearly up to her bra before she could react. His eyes bugged out at the little innie belly-button and her freckled skin, but she grabbed his hands before he could see any more and hauled her jumper back down.

“You’d best not be doing that, Fitz,” she choked out as his fingers slipped reluctantly from underneath hers. “And perhaps you should leave your own shirt on, and down, as well. People around here can’t even handle other  _ humans  _ who are different from them, let alone  _ aliens _ .”

Most likely because she was a doctor and spent all of her time considering this anyway, Jemma found herself wondering how  _ else  _ his anatomy differed from that of a biologically average human being. His all-in-one had seemed to suggest that at least  _ some  _ parts were the same…

“Are these libations? I’m  _ starving _ .” 

She shook herself from that  _ very inappropriate  _ train of thought to find Fitz with his bare hand thrust straight in the jar of pesto aioli.

“Oh, goodness, don’t do that--”

He popped his hand free, licked his thumb clean, and groaned, eyes closing. “Jemma, this is  _ divine _ . What elixir of the noncorporeal entities of the outer realm is  _ this _ ?”

“Make yourself right at home, then!” she snapped, swiping the jar away from him.

“That’s quite kind of you,” he nodded, and he used one of the slices of toast she’d laid out to wipe his hand clean.

“Fitz,” she sighed again. “As lovely as it’s been to make your acquaintance, and as much of an  _ honor _ it is to have an actual  _ alien  _ in my kitchen, and as  _ fascinating  _ as it would be to --” What was a polite way to say  _ examine you for scientific purposes? _ “--engage in interplanetary cultural exchange, I can’t help noting that your landing in my garden seemed less than intentional. Did something go wrong in your travels?”

“M’ shi’,” Fitz grunted around his mouthful of bread.

“Sorry?”

“My ship,” he repeated, jerking his thumb towards where the smoking wreck still lay in the back garden. “It’s busted.”

“And do you have plans to un-bust it?” Jemma wheedled patiently.

He shrugged, studying the bread crust he was still holding between two fingers. “Even if I could, which I can’t, given that the wires are shot and the tools are unavailable, I would have to find my way back home, which I couldn’t even locate, because my navigational system stopped functioning about two space jumps ago.”

It sounded like a load of gibberish to Jemma, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Frankly, he didn’t fit on either the crotchety, warrior-type alien stereotype or the innocent, overly sweet one, but rather fell somewhere in the middle. It was maddeningly confusing.

Some realities of life were, apparently, cross-species. 

“I may be able to help,” she said at last, physically restraining him from dangling a piece of prosciutto into his open mouth. “My Uncle Phil is a bit of a--” Conspiracy freak sounded a bit harsh to begin with, and with a real-life alien ravaging her sandwich makings, it was suddenly a lot harder to judge Uncle Phil’s hobbies. “He’s into space and foreign beings and all that. He might know what to do.”   
  
  
  


On the car ride over to her uncle’s garage, Fitz strained against his seatbelt to examine the controls on the dashboard.

“What’s this one do?” he asked, thrilled, as his forefinger hovered above the defrost.

“Melts things,” Jemma said vaguely. She’d learned quickly that the best way to dissuade Fitz from meddling was to make everything sound as boring as possible. Unfortunately, he seemed to find  _ everything  _ fascinating.

“And this one?”

This time he didn’t wait, just smacked the power button for the radio, and Bowie’s “Starman” vibrated through the vehicle. Fitz jerked back against his seat, eyes blown wide by the sounds.

“Pretty cool, right?” Jemma chuckled, bobbing her head to the guitar solo.

Fitz watched her motions with a slight smile as he relaxed.

“What?” Jemma asked, blushing slightly under his gaze. 

“Nothing,” he grinned. “Can it go louder?”

By the time they pulled up at Coulson and Mackenzie, Jemma had nearly lost her hearing in one ear but Fitz was making up words to songs he’d only just heard for the first time and if all aliens were like this, Jemma wanted to sign up for astronaut training  _ immediately _ .

“Hi, Mack!” she called to her uncle’s business partner as she dragged Fitz through the garage. “Uncle Phil in?”

“Cleaning up his office, I think,” Mack chuckled, nodding towards the back. “May came by and had a few critiques about his organizational system.”

“As she should!” Waving to Mack in thanks, she hauled Fitz by the back of his -- her -- shirt away from the Corvette on which Mack was working and into Coulson’s office.

“Jemma!” Coulson straightened and dropped a stack of manila folders onto his desk in relief. “Finally, an interruption. Please, stay a while, all afternoon if you need to.”

“Thanks, Uncle Phil, but I’m actually here with an inquiry. Or a plea.” There was no way to do this gently, so she stood at the end of the desk directly between Coulson and Fitz and said clearly, “Fitz, my Uncle Phil has done extensive research on other-worldly travels and beings for most of his life. Uncle Phil, Fitz here is an alien.”

“An a--”

“An alien,” Jemma repeated.

“You’re not pulling my leg?”

“Not even a bit.”

“Did Daisy put you up to this?”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

Coulson hooked his thumbs in his belt on either side of his hips and eyed Fitz warily but with an undeniable glint of enthusiasm.

“You’re sure?”

“If his spaceship ruining the grass in my garden weren’t indication enough, the abnormal markings on his stomach make it rather clear.  _ And  _ he’s no idea how a light switch operates.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Coulson whispered. He started to round the table, probably to get up close to Fitz just as Jemma wanted to do, but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm and raised her eyebrows. “Hands to myself?” he sighed reluctantly, moving back again.

“Anyway, I’ve brought him to you,” Jemma continued, catching Fitz’s hand as he nearly toppled Coulson’s pencil holder, “in the hopes that you’ll be able to guide him back home. And help him fix his ship.”

“What system are you in?” Coulson asked Fitz.

“The Hinari system,” Fitz offered automatically.

“Oh, wow,” Coulson breathed, a boyish smile lighting his face. “You have a beautiful home planet, Mr. Fitz. From what I’ve heard it’s lush and hilly with massive lakes-- Like Scotland,” he added aside to Jemma. “Hence the accent.”

“Ah,” she nodded, as if that made  _ total  _ sense. With Uncle Phil she knew better than to ask.

“Well, I’ll have Mack haul your ship over to the garage and we’ll start tinkering. I’ve got a friend in Vancouver who’s seen a couple of these things -- I don’t know if he’s ever worked on one from Hinari but I’ll give him a ring. As to navigation -- I’ve got an old systems map here somewhere--” He looked around at the piles of papers and books and old sandwich wrappers. “Okay, maybe Melinda has a point.”

“How soon do you think you can have all that done?” Fitz asked anxiously.    


“Day, two days, tops.” Coulson caught Jemma’s incredulous look and huffed, “Okay,  _ maybe  _ three.”

“Just give us a call if you need any information from Fitz,” Jemma insisted. “I don’t know if his visual directions would be of assistance -- you know, second star to the right and straight on til morning.”

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” Fitz snorted.

“Thanks, Uncle Phil,” Jemma chuckled, and she showed Fitz out. 

  
  
  
  


Fitz seemed a bit droopy after their meeting with Coulson, so Jemma picked up some take-away Chinese food and a pint of ice cream, and they ate in front of the television with reruns of  _ Doctor Who _ . Fitz nearly cried when he tasted the ice cream -- apparently, sugar was not a known substance on Planet Hinari -- so Jemma let him have full control of that while she worked on the take-away.

“Thank you for being so kind to me,” Fitz murmured, his eyes riveted to the screen. “I know I seem like a right experienced traveler but I’m actually something of a homebody. This is my first time off Hinari and everything’s a bit terrifying but -- you’ve been so friendly.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Jemma assured him, tucking her legs up under her on the sofa and leaning sideways against the back cushion so she could watch him.

“What’re they doing that for?”

She followed his pointing spoon to the screen, where Amy Pond and Rory were locked in a passionate, desperate snog.

“They’re kissing,” Jemma laughed.

“Kissing?” Fitz repeated slowly.

“People kiss when they like each other very much,” Jemma explained gently.

“Kissing.” Fitz looked down into the ice cream container, from which he was eating directly. “I think I’d like to try that someday.”

“You will,” Jemma assured him, her arm sliding along the couch back so she could almost touch his shoulder. She decided against it at the last moment. “You must have someone you care about at home?”

He was silent for a moment, and Jemma was struck by how much he was truly like the Doctor -- so boisterous and talkative and fascinated earlier, now revealing something softer, someone more afraid and fragile. 

“Not really,” he admitted, still avoiding her gaze. “Don’t really fit in.” 

His lack of interest about the disarray of his spaceship, the nervousness in his voice when asking Coulson about the timeline for repairs, his enamoration of all things human suddenly made sense.

What must it take, how lonely must it be, for a homebody to leave his planet, his very galaxy?    


“You know exactly how to fix your ship, don’t you?” Jemma whispered, this time touching his shoulder with one finger.

He nodded guiltily, his chin hitting his chest as he bowed his head. 

Jemma considered him for a long time, from the graceful way he balanced the spoon across his bandaged palm to the impossibly smooth skin of his cheeks. (Did aliens grow facial hair?)

“You could stay,” she murmured.

Fitz’s head jerked up and he stared at her with such hope it made her heart burn in her chest. “What?”

“You could stay, for a while,” she mumbled, blushing for no reason. “Just... treat it as a holiday, see how you like things on Earth. See if there’s anyone worth kissing. Learn some of the  _ actual _ lyrics to those songs.”

He opened his mouth but words seemed to fail him. Jemma almost thought he would kiss her right then and there, inspired by the Doctor’s companions, but instead he gave her a tremulous smile and handed her the ice cream.

“Jemma, I think you’re my favorite being in the universe.”

Jemma grinned down into the ice cream, which was mostly liquid by now. She knew a thing or two about loneliness and being an odd bird and certainly, as far as she could remember, no one has been nearly as interesting as Fitz. And  _ no one _ had ever complimented her like that.

She waited until his head was turned back to the screen before she darted forward and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, letting her lips linger so he would understand the sensation.

When she sat back, he looked around slowly, his lips slightly parted and his eyes very wide.

“There are lots of forms of kissing,” Jemma explained, heat in her cheeks. “As your guide to all things Earth, I feel duty-bound to get you started.”

No duty required her to scootch closer to him as they kept watching the episode, but she did it anyway. 

 

\------------------

 

Fitz, who had traveled across galaxies and could name the planetary systems of the universe from the age of three, had never seen such beautiful stars as when Jemma Simmons kissed him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Per request in the comments of chapter 1 (I didn't glance back to see who it was but feel free to claim it!), a continuation! A smutty-ish one coming up eventually :)

“Any use for this?” Fitz asked from the doorway.

Jemma glanced up from the couch, where she’d been folding his blankets. (Even after three weeks living with her, he hadn’t picked up on her preference for neatness. She wondered whether this was characteristic of all inhabitants of Planet Fitz, or just a quirk of this particular alien.)

He had the strange purple grease from his spaceship smeared along his arms and neck and speckling the grey t-shirt Coulson had loaned him. He looked like a pale, gangly mechanic, and Jemma smiled to herself.

“I have no idea what that is,” she said for the fiftieth time, taking in the latest part from his ship that he brandished at her.

Fitz sighed. “It’s a Hargot-Utyick accelerator, Jemma.”

“Of course it is. What does it do? And if you say ‘accelerate’ I swear—“

“It – makes things faster,” Fitz grumbled.

“My internet connection is miserable, think it can accelerate that?”

“Worth a shot.”

“Do you need me to show you?” It was a question more of habit than necessity. By now Fitz knew where everything lay, from her gas register to the tangle of wires underneath her desk which she’d never dared to tackle and which he had unwoven in minutes. The only part of the house with which he hadn’t become intimately acquainted, really, was Jemma’s bedroom, which he hadn’t entered since he’d changed there on his first day on Earth.

“I’ve got it.” Fitz was at the threshold of the hallway when he stopped and turned back to her to ask tentatively, “Unless you want to keep me company?”

Jemma beamed and bounced up from the sofa to follow him.

Both used to being alone, it had taken them a few days to remember that they didn’t need to remain solitary. They could spend time apart, spend time together, or even just sit in the same space and not speak, and somehow it never felt like too much – or really, like quite enough. The initial culture-shock amazement at Fitz’s differences from Earth people had faded into acceptance that he would eat pickles at breakfast and was terrified of meteorologists.

Fitz was crouched next to the wireless modem with his accelerator, sliding his fingers smoothly over the wires as he explored the connections. Jemma watched him work for a moment, mesmerized by the little rolling motion he made to twist a wire over, then said, again for the fiftieth time, “You can change your mind whenever, Fitz, you know that?”

“If you want me to leave—“

“Of course I don’t!” Jemma rushed to say to his hunched back. “You’re welcome forever.” Was that too honest? “But I don’t want you to suddenly get homesick and feel like you can’t say anything for fear of hurting my feelings--”

“I won’t get homesick,” he murmured, barely flinching as something he did to attach the accelerator set off a shower of blue sparks.

“—You’re taking apart your spaceship, and I’m sure Coulson would love the opportunity to try to build one for you should the need arise, but I worry that—“

“I won’t get homesick because you – because this is my home now.”

The backs of Fitz’s ears were strawberry-red, and without adequate words to thank him for his declaration and assure him it was returned, she reached out and ran her fingers lightly down his back, just once.

“What’s the password again?” Fitz queried, sitting back on his heels so that she could see the new set-up.

“11-09-87,” she supplied. She leaned over eagerly to see him spin a few dials on the accelerator. It looked high-tech enough to have powered his spaceship alone. “My birthday.”

“Your what?” he asked absently.

“My birthd—Do you not have a birthday?” she demanded, catching his elbow and turning him to face her, nearly toppling him over.

“No, I guess not, as I’ve no idea what that word is,” he shot back.

“Alright then,” Jemma breathed, deciding to not let her amazement show. She could understand his lack of familiarity with Boxing Day and Easter, but _birthdays?_ Unless she’d dramatically misinterpreted the bits of anatomy she’d spied when he plodded around in boxers and towels, Fitzes seemed to reproduce in roughly (no pun intended) the same way as humans. Perhaps they pupated eggs instead of mammalian live births? “We’ll have to give you a birthday, in that case. Just like if you were adopted. Which you are, in a way. How about… today?”

“Why today?” Fitz asked skeptically.

“Why not? It’s just twenty days before my birthday, so we could make it a whole month of celebrating ourselves. And August doesn’t have enough holidays to begin with. It’ll improve the entire end of summer.”

“What does one… _do_ for a birthday?”

 

 

 

“Of course zoos are incredibly problematic,” Jemma gushed as they were swept through the main gates with hordes of children enjoying the end of their summer holiday. “The implications on the health and mental state of the animals involved are immense for minimal social benefit and I’m on several animal activist mailing lists promoting the eventual closure of this zoo, but—“

She gave up as she saw the way Fitz pivoted in the sunlight, gaping at the leopard prowling in an enclosure by the ticket booth and the peacocks strutting freely down the paths. She’d guessed this would be an adequate birthday trip, given his consistent fascination with _Animal Planet_ , and she selfishly thrilled to know that she’d been the one to produce such joy for him.

That initial joy, though, was _nothing_ next to his face when they reached the monkeys.

“What are they?” he squeaked, the emotion in his voice raising it a good octave.

“Capuchins,” she chuckled. “Cute, aren’t they?”

“They’re…” He curled his fingers in the fence, eyes bouncing through the trees to follow the primates’ motions. “They’re clearly a superior species.”

They could get into evolution later, Jemma decided.

“Can we get one?” he asked suddenly. When he turned to face her, his eyebrows were halfway up his forehead, widening his eyes.

“What do you mean?” she laughed.

“Like a… a pat? A pot?”

“A pet?”

“Yeah, that one! You know, like people have dogs and cats – you and I could have a monkey.”

Jemma’s first reaction was a significant swoop-and-soar sensation in her chest. Though they’d been living together and sharing everything, they’d largely danced around more stereotypically recognizable forms of a relationship. There were different cultures to navigate, as Fitz seemed entirely oblivious to Jemma’s every attempt to flirt with him. Getting a pet together – god, the way he said “you and I” – seemed like something normal Earth couples would do.

Well, getting a cat or dog, maybe. A capuchin?

“Fitz, I’m afraid that’s neither sensible nor legal,” she said gently, taking his hand in hopes of softening the blow. “It belongs in my little house no more than it really belongs in this cage.”

“But—“ Storm clouds formed in Fitz’s eyes and he drew away from her. “You said birthday boys got whatever they wanted.”

Jemma winced. She _had_ said that, just a few hours ago. “That was a bit of a generalization, I’m afraid. There are still certain rules by which we must abide.”

He glanced back at the monkeys and nodded curtly. He’d not let go of her hand, and that simple gesture assured her that his droopiness was disappointment more than petulance or anger at her, but it still twisted her heart. Fitz was a being too pure for Earth, and did she not selfishly want him to stay with her, she would’ve wished he’d landed on a gentler planet.

He remained distracted through the other exhibits, not even laughing at the camels – even Jemma could recognize that most of the animals at the zoo looked completely ridiculous when seen for the first time – or marveling at the rainbow feathers of the exotic birds. At a loss for anything else to do to appease him, she shifted her hand so that rather than merely resting in his palm their fingers were twined. He looked down in surprise, but his grip tightened and that funny sensation from before returned.

By the end of the afternoon, the crease in his forehead had vanished, even if he wasn’t smiling. (Jemma was certain he’d have been crossing his arms if not for her hand in his.) Then she saw the gift shop, and she had a brainwave.

“We can’t bring a real capuchin home,” she conceded, dragging him through the postcards and keychains. “But maybe this’ll be an okay second-best.” And she plucked a stuffed monkey from the rack and held it out for his inspection.

He regarded it impassively for a full minute, then he extended both hands and gently took it from her, cradling it under its armpits. A soft smile crept up, finally, and he whispered, “Henry.”

“Henry?” she teased.

In lieu of answering, he reached around her and took down another monkey, pushing it into her arms. “My monkey needs a friend. As I’ve learned today, the most ordinary day is made extraordinary by having the right person to share it with.”

Jemma had been on supposedly-romantic dates that felt less magical than this afternoon with her new, alien best friend.

Aware of his eyes on her, she studied her monkey, then said decidedly, “Maggie.”

“Maggie and Henry.” Fitz nodded his approval, turning Henry to face Maggie and Jemma. “Best friends forever.”

“Or maybe more than that?” Jemma ventured, unable to keep the thought to herself any more. Tentatively, she moved her monkey forward until its nose bumped that of Fitz’s, and she tilted it slightly, approximating a chaste little monkey-kiss. She held her breath as he remained still before her, hoping against hope that he would recognize the action from the movies and shows they’d watched together and the emotion and intention she’d explained was often behind it.

And then finally it was if he understood. He took Maggie from her and wrapped both his arms around her, the stuffed monkeys bumping her hips as he kissed her. It was sweet and exploratory, and even without the technique and finesse of her past boyfriends, Jemma was ready to declare it the best kiss she’d ever had.

One might even say it was… out of this world.

 


End file.
